Facebook

by LP

There’s so many reasons I’ve never wanted a Facebook: the fact that it basically started out as a Nice Guy™ initiative for checking out “available chicks”, the “closing off” of a huge chunk of the internet, which to me goes against that the internet should be about, the real names policy, which is annoying at best and actually dangerous at worst, the complete lack of security, the whole “like” culture which has stifled most communications on blogs, the “friend collecting” culture, the “my life is awesomer than yours!” culture, the peer pressure to join, etcetera. There’s actually nothing about Facebook I like.

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I have lived a detoured life. On top of that, I have a unique IRL name. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my own life, let alone with the lives of the people around me: I literally don’t have the time or energy to keep up with the minutiae of the lives of the hundreds of people I have met throughout my various careers, schools and other activities. And honestly, even if I did have the time: I don’t want to. It sounds mean to say that I don’t care, but it’s the truth: I don’t.

The vast majority of them are lovely people and I hope they’re all happy and well, but we’re not in each other’s lives anymore. So I don’t really care about their mother-in-law, what they ate this morning or their opinions about the current refugee crisis. And I honestly can’t be convinced that all people with hundreds of Facebook friends really DO care and/or are interested in each and every one of them.

I think this is what I hate most about Facebook and social media in general: it has made it impossible to just move on, to lose touch with each other in an organic way. Now you’re “stuck” with each other forever until you actually unfriend them — which often seems too harsh an action towards somebody who actually never was your friend to begin with.

All of this wouldn’t bother me as much if I had the option to stay off Facebook forever, but unfortunately I last week I HAD to open a Facebook account because of my (awesome!) internship. I even gave them my trufax IRL name. After which Facebook proceeded to tell me that I apparently don’t know how to spell said trufax IRL name… I am not going to use it other than as an inlog to post on a community page, I am not going to add anyone and as soon as I am done interning, I’ll delete it. But still, it bothers me.

It made me think about the cost of things, and how much I want or even need to compromise for my ~career~*. I have written before about me quitting going to places where people drink a lot. But what if this is the way people interact in my chosen future profession? What if I can’t afford to NOT to hang out at networking places with the booze and the bla? Should I maybe start drinking myself as well?

People say that having a career, especially in this field, is “a matter of wanting it bad enough”. Is it? And if so, do I want it enough? How far am I willing to compromise? Does anyone reading have any experiences, opinions and/or tips they’re willing to share? Because yup, that’s how my brain works: other people just open a damn Facebook and continue with their day, I start generating existential questions. And on to my Philosophy of Science homework I go!

* Just to make sure: in a world in which people have to mine uranium to survive, having a Facebook account I don’t want isn’t that big of a deal, I am well aware of that.

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5 Comments to “Facebook”

As someone who has deleted FB because of the “like” culture, the bragging culture and the keeping up with a timeline full of nonsense, it’s actually something I have been wondering about myself. I personally hope that having a LinkedIn account would suffice because I don’t plan to return to FB. But yeah, there’s the emphasis on “networking” these days, and a lot of it hinges on FB because everyone and their dog is on FB these days. I have wondered how it’ll affect my *~career~* as well.

I agree with you on the problem of FB/Social media; some people seem to substitute being on a friendslist and the occasional mutual like as friendship for some reason?

That said, it sucks that you’re more or less forced to open an account on a website you don’t want an account on. 😦

I had really hoped that the whole Facebook thing would have petered out by now, like Hyves did, but alas (poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite Facebook postings…)

It really is complex nowadays, like you say: 80 million ways of being in touch with each other, but most peeps are not actually in touch with each other.

And then the networking… I’m not going to claim it was more fun in the days of no social media because networking (to me at least) has always been, uhm, not my favorite, but I find it more difficult now: I don’t want to have a “working” Facebook where every potential networking contact can see all my cat pictures, but linkedin is not as moving and shaking as I expected it to be, but I might still need to get the hang of it. Thankfully, I don’t have to hardcore start looking for work until After The Studies, as I first need to finally finish these studies. 😀

But yeah, I would have hoped the same. I think it *is* on a decline; people are either using it less or just become disillusioned with it, but with “people” I refer to a really small amount. Tons of people still use it. Hell, tons of people still consider it the standard way of communicating despite email/text messaging/whatsapp/other social netwerk accounts. But yes, on FB, people don’t truly connect. When I was on FB, there were very few people I actually spoke with. Hell, from the people I contacted prior to deleting, only a minority actually bothered contacting me, and most of them were close friends or fellow students.

And ugh, networking. I really don’t like the emphasis on this. Neither do I like the emphasis on FB that is actually used. Why should I share personal information such as pictures of my dog or my geekiness with every potential coworker?

LinkedIn is…yeah. I’m not sure how to use the networking part actually? I add people from previous internships and studies etc, but otherwise? No clue.

And yeah, same. xD Finish studies, and in my case, figuring out what I actually want to do. xD I do hear you on the /writing/editing/publishing world, though (I’ve read the comments below xD). I’m not too big on drinking either, and there are some of the same concerns I feel even if I’m not fully sure if that’s the career I’d like to pursue.

In my job, there are people who go out for drinks together and those who don’t, and no judging either way. Plus, I have a work FB too, for closed communities, and you don’t have to interact with anyone else on FB if you don’t want to. I understand your point of view – but there is a large area of grey between black and white, so I wouldn’t worry career-wise.

I don’t worry as much about it once I have a job: in previous jobs others would go out drinking and I just wouldn’t and that was it. It’s more the getting the job part that worries me: the writing/editing/publishing world is extremely competitive, who-knows-who and extremely drink-y in that people drink A LOT. And I’m just wondering if not wanting to be present in those drinkfests will make me miss out on opportunities because 1) they don’t know me, so have no idea how awesome I am and 2) if they do, I might be considered too boring because I don’t drink.

My Facebook is completely closed off and I haven’t been found by stalkerish ghosts from the past yet (I have on LinkedIn however, also a site I didn’t really want to join), but I just resent the fact that I need to have accounts on sites where this could potentially be an issue again.